Woodland Walk

It’s no forest,

this assemblage of trees,

with crumbling tarmacadam

winding through it,

occasionally revealing much prettier setts

laid a century-and-a-half ago.

Vertiginous stairs the locals call

“The Cat’s Steps” lead in or out,

depending on your direction of meander.

A troop of mushrooms

are privates off parade

in the dell, between the path

and the forbidding, heroic rock

with its caves - too damp for scrolls

or squirrels - between trees.

A charmless goldfinch is clearly lost,

a passerine passing through,

for this woodland is anything but low.

And into the sunlight:

Hispanic weather,

lost on its way south,

loitering here in Levelupland,

teasing us with its promise,

before the inevitable rain.